Newspaper Articles

Huntington Herald Dispatch
May 9, 1960

Kennedy Here Today For Final Vote Bid

Sen. Kennedy (D-Mass) will make his sixth and final appearance in Huntington this morning in his bid for votes in tomorrow’s Democratic presidential preference primary. His only rival Sen. Humphrey (D-Minn), made his last campaign appearance here at a reception yesterday afternoon.

Kennedy will greet Owens-Illinois workers at the plant gate at 7 a.m. An hour later he will be at the International Nickel Co. gate and at 9 a.m. he will visit the West Virginia Steel Works of the H.K. Porter Co., Inc.

At 9:45 a.m. Kennedy will tour the Twentieth Street shopping area and at 10:45 a.m. the downtown district on Fourth Avenue between Eighth and Eleventh Streets. He is scheduled to leave at 11:30 a.m. for the Tri-State Airport to catch a plane for Parkersburg.

Humphrey and his family arrived here yesterday afternoon and were entertained by the Cabell-Huntington Democratic Women’s Club at the Junior League Community Center.

The Humphrey for President Committee announced that open house will be held at its headquarters at 1025 Third Avenue tomorrow night starting at 8 p.m. Election returns will be shown on a television set and refreshments will be served.

Integrity Lost, Says Humphrey

By: Richard K. Boyd
Huntington AP Correspondent

Sen. Humphrey (D-Minn) charged in the polite atmosphere of a women’s club here yesterday that “we have lost some of our integrity as a nation.”

In obvious reference to the U.S. admission of intelligence flights over Russia he said “Khrushchev has us on the run in a propaganda battle right now. And I’ll tell you why. It’s because we haven’t been telling the truth.”

Humphrey, his wife and two young sons were late-arriving guests of a Democratic Women’s Club at a Mother’s Day tea at the Junior League Community Center.

Due at 2 p.m. for the 2 to 4 tea, they didn’t arrive until 4:30 p.m. Weather conditions grounded their plane at Clarksburg, where they spent Saturday night, making necessary an 80-mile drive to Parkersburg to charter a plane for the flight here.

The crowd waited patiently, however.

The setting was one of stark contrast to economically depressed areas in the state visited recently by Humphrey, as he grubbed for votes in his campaign for popular support for the Democratic nomination for president against Sen. Kennedy (D-Mass) in the West Virginia primary.

The Women’s Club touch was enhanced by Humphrey’s wife, Muriel, who spoke first, and said:

“Many people have found out what real leadership qualities he has. The record of the man is the only way we have of judging what he might be as President.”

Leading up to his charge of loss of national integrity, Humphrey complained that his discussion of the issues was not getting in the papers. “We end up with all this flim-flam of politics, instead of the muscle of good solid program.”

He called this a “fraud and a sham, a corruption of truth.”

He repeated his familiar charge that the present Republican administration is “neglecting America, a neglect of the last decade that will have to be made up in the next decade.”

Referring again to his opponent, he said “I am up against the most highly organized, highly polished, well-financed organization of my life.”

“We failed an ‘honest’ report of finances.” He said. This was a reference to the initial accounting of political expenses in his West Virginia campaign, which showed some $13,000 spent to some $12,000 for Kennedy.